Response to Course Material

     First week into AP Lit, and we've covered and learned so much material (including all the summer work). I can't really help but also talk about the summer material even though this post is suppose to start from my latest post. The set of poetry that we had to read, comparison of  David Sedaris' essay and Micheal Harvey's book, and the diagnostic test all had a common direction; it was preparing me to become an AP Lit student. A good AP Lit student. Following up, we had three pages of vocabulary & three pages of presentation notes, which i won't deny-- i was very rusty prior to these. 

     I started making small connections between what I've learned thus far. That three-page vocab i was talking about, majority of them tied with poetry terms. Well what a coincidence, most of the students, myself included, posted on their blogs that studying poetry terms is a new goal. Despite the statistics, I came about with poor grade on the terms test. What did i get out of that? Well, first of all, definitions aren't definitions unless I know how to use the word in a sentence, point out examples of that word and most importantly, genuinely understand the definition. I also found myself surprised when there were not just one, but many words with similar definition: anadiplosis, anaphora, antistrophe, and diacope (repetitions... say whaaaat?). I wondered why i never came across these before when studying poetry, but I know the answer now-- i never really knew what they meant so i never really looked for these examples either.

     The Essay Writing Basics, Rhetorical Situation, and Argument presentations had one main focus to it that many writers would've caught on to. All the types of arguments (logos ethos pathos), the claim, warrants, and premise are techniques that authors use WHICH THEN leads to communication a.k.a, a rhetorical situation. Moreover, there are things readers can literally point to in a passage and some that are not possible. This was so confusing that the prezi presentation was just overwhelming in general until Ms. Holmes gave the examples of diction, syntax, images and metaphors; atmosphere is something we cannot touch. I can't say if this was review or not, but i feel like i should've known this: there are a whole lot of purposes to write about. I can write to entertain, persuade, inform, and reflex and most likely, these need communication or rhetorical skills. 

     If i had to summarize this up, there's actually too much i've learned the past week, but I can see that i'm absorbing all the information. I can make connections not with what we learned on the same day, but also with the other course material in general. This makes me happy & gives me hope that AP Lit isn't going to be too harsh after all.